Once upon a time, a hitter with two strikes would step out of the box, compose himself, choke up on the bat, widen his stance and do all he could to make contact. Any contact.

Now with two strikes, it's grip and rip.

"I don't care about strikeouts," said Brandon Moss, the A's strikeout leader with 48, who paused before reflecting on last Sunday's golden sombrero. "I care about strikeouts when you have four of them in 14 pitches."

His batting coach, Chili Davis, had his share of strikeouts over a 19-year playing career that ended in 1999. He did care.

"It was 30 feet going up to the plate," Davis said. "If you struck out, it felt like 30 miles coming back."

My, how the world changed.

Strikeouts are up, and worrying about strikeouts is down. "The way the game is today," Moss said, "we all strike out. You strike out 100 times, you're not even a big strikeout guy anymore."

That's a fact - 111 batters reached triple digits in strikeouts last year, up from 78 in 2011 and 60 in 2003, and it figures to be more of the same this year. Strikeouts have increased each of the past seven years, and April's 5,992 K's were the most in history for a single month.

"You find not only more guys with a home run mentality, but pitchers with more of a strikeout mentality," said Davis, whose 2012 club won the AL West despite collecting a league-record 1,387 K's. "Guys have better arms and a lot of stuff to go with those arms. With a 2-0 or 3-1 count, it's not, 'Here's my best fastball.' Not only are guys throwing 93 to 96 (mph), they're throwing changeups, curves and sliders in fastball counts."

Davis said the A's spoke with Moss about shortening up and putting the ball in play with two strikes, though the big-swinging Moss isn't totally on board. Likewise, not all Giants buy into hitting coach Hensley Meulens' sermons about bat-on-ball values.

But some do. The Giants have struck out less than any National League team except the Dodgers and own the majors' highest two-strike batting average.

"When you make contact, something happens," Meulens said.

Other reasons for all the extra whiffs:

-- More specialty relievers who throw one inning or face one batter and say hello with high-90 heat, pooh-poohing the pitch-to-contact philosophy.

-- The sabermetrics influence suggesting it's good to take pitches and go deep into a count to try improving the on-base percentage - even though walks are down in recent years.

-- The arrival of the PITCHf/x tracking system, which informs umpires through camera work which pitches they might be missing and, in effect, prompts them to call more strikes - called strikes have increased in recent years.

-- The PITCHf/x system also allows pitchers to realize a hole in a hitter's swing.

-- Bigger swings equal more home runs equal bigger contracts.

-- The belief that strikeouts aren't a rotten thing, after all.

"I generally believe an out is an out whether it's a strikeout or not. I think I'm part of the new school," A's shortstop Jed Lowriesaid. "It's a different mentality. Guys just aren't worried about striking out. They want to do damage. It seems some of the older generation used to take it personally when they struck out. I don't think guys think about it that way anymore."

Just ask Moss.

"I've struck out 140 times in Triple-A, and this is the big leagues," he said. "These pitchers are better. I'm going to strike out."

Shea Hey: Making pitch to Tanaka will cost

If Masahiro Tanakais the next Yu Darvish, it's easy to see why the Rangers are interested.

And the Yankees and Orioles. And any other team that follows his achievements in Japan. We've heard the Giants and A's have eyes on him, too, not that either is eager to pay a posting fee in the tens of millions of dollars.

Just for the right to negotiate with him.

Tanaka, 24, is 6-0 with a 2.07 ERA for the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles and throws an above-average split-fingered fastball and slider to complement a fastball that touches 155 km. On the American gun, 96 mph.

He'll be available to major-league teams next winter, and he won't come cheap.

"This guy is comparable to Darvish," a scout who has seen Tanaka pitch several times told me. "He's different from most Japanese pitchers. He has a lot of emotion out there, more like an American pitcher. He's an aggressive guy, a Roy Oswalttype."

Tanaka, the star of Japan's latest WBC rotation, could be a decent alternative.

To acquire Darvish, the Rangers paid a $51.7 million posting fee to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham Fighters and committed $60 million over six years to Darvish. No regrets. Darvish is 7-1 with a 2.97 ERA, outpitching Justin Verlanderin his last start.

Darvish's final season in Japan was 2011, and he nearly won the Sawamura Award (equivalent of the Cy Young Award) after going 18-6 with a 1.44 ERA and 0.828 WHIP. He lost to a guy who had a better year. Tanaka.

The Bull Pen

-- Let's not call ex-Giants prospect Zack Wheeler injury prone. Let's call him one tough dude. This season, he has had oblique, blister and shoulder issues but keeps pitching. He's missing a start because of the shoulder ailment but is expected to be activated by the Mets by mid-June, joining Matt Harveyin one of the game's most intriguing rotations.

-- Minnesota's Aaron Hicksmade such a nice catch Monday - he robbed Adam Dunnof a home run and also hit two homers - that ex-Twins center fielder Torii Huntercongratulated him on Twitter, writing, "U look like somebody I know."

-- A movement is on for Mariano Riverato start the All-Star Game. Stop it. The feeling is that it would be a short stint anyway and a nice way to pay tribute to the greatest closer in history, but let's honor the man as he should be honored by having him pitch the final inning. Even Rivera wants no part of starting, preferring to do the job he's paid to do.

-- Minnesota's Trevor Plouffewas ticked for good reason. His mother is a breast cancer survivor, and he was not permitted to swing a pink bat on Mother's Day. That's because Louisville Slugger, which made a handsome donation to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, cut a deal with MLB that hitters could use pink bats but only with Louisville Slugger logos. So Plouffe's bat company, MaxBat, made a bat with only its logo pink. MLB objected. Plouffe used it anyway, and good for him.

-- Orioles third baseman Manny Machadolikes hanging out with older people. He's a 20-year-old who's playing in the majors - quite effectively, in fact: a league-high 2.6 WAR - and is engaged to Yainee Alonso, the 23-year-old sister of Padres first baseman Yonder Alonso. Wednesday, against his future brother-in-law's team, Machado had four hits, including three doubles. That's grown-up stuff.